Bob Sapey

PhD Supervision Interests

Disability studies

Profile

I have been at Lancaster since October 1999 prior to which I worked for six years in the Social Work Department of the University of Central Lancashire. Previously I held a variety of social work posts in Cornwall including residential, field, training and care management, though specialising in work with older people and disabled people.

Research Interests

My current research is focussed on voice hearing and the implications of social explanations for this experience for social work practice. 

My research has been concerned with the relationship between social workers and disabled people in the provision of support services. I have also studied the use of technology within social work and the impact this has on practice.  

I am a member of the Centre for Disabuility Research (CeDR) at Lancaster University an am currently one of its co-directors. Full details of CeDR and its work are available at www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/centres/cedr.

My current work includes:

Lancaster Disability Studies Conferences. I am co-organizer (with Hannah Morgan) of this biennial international disability studies conference that has been held at Lancaster University in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. The next conference will be from 11-13th September 2012. For more information and to access the conference archive, see the Conference website.

I am chair of the Advisory Group for the Mental Health in Higher Education (mhhe) project, which aims to enhance learning and teaching about mental well-being and ill-health across the disciplines in UK higher education.The mhhe Project Director (Jill Anderson) is based at the University of Cumbria. MHHE was a partnership between five subject centres of the Higher Education Academy: Social Policy and Social Work; Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine; Psychology; Health Sciences and Practice; Education; and the two Centres for Excellence in Learning and Teaching about Mental Health at: The University of Birmingham and Middlesex University.

I am co-author with Michael Oliver of the 2nd and 3rd editions (1999 and 2006) of Social Work with Disabled People, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

The 2nd edition was translated into complex Chinese in 2004 (Psychological Publishing Co., Taiwan) and into simplified Chinese in 2009 (China Renmin University Press, Beijing).

The 3rd edition was translated into Japanese (Kongo, Tokyo) and is due to be translated into Korean (Sigma Press Inc., Seoul).

The 4th edition was also co-authored by Dr Pam Thomas and was published in 2012.

Current Teaching

ASSC 103 The Contested Nature of Social Work

ASSC 108 Social Work and Mental Health

ASSC 425 Social Work and Mental Health

• LPSA 6, Action research into increasing the employment rate of people with disabilities in west Cumbria

  01/11/2003 → 31/03/2004
  In October 2003, Cumbria County Council's Community, Economy and Environment department commissioned Lancaster University and the Disability association Carlisle and Eden (DaCE) to undertake an action ... Read more»

• Guidance on making placements accessible for disabled social work students

  01/06/2003 → 31/01/2004
  This project evaluated the access that disabled students had to placements within social work courses. The evaluation included a review of the literature, analysis of case examples provided by educati ... Read more»

• Cumbria Direct Payments Scheme Evaluation

  01/09/2001 → 31/03/2002
  The Cumbria Direct Payments Project (DPP) was established in 2000 with the aims, To promote and increase greater independent along with greater choice for those people who are eligible to recei ... Read more»

• Social Implications of the Increase in Wheelchair Use

  01/04/2001 → 30/09/2004
  In 2001, we were funded by the NHS Executive North West R & D Directorate to undertake a study into the social implications of the increases in wheelchair use in the north west of England. Between 198 ... Read more»

• Wheelchair Housing and the Estimation of Need

  01/01/1996 → 31/12/1996
  Our objectives were to examine and update the reported information on the provision of housing for wheelchair users and to analyse the methodology of these reports in order that we could evaluate the ... Read more»

• Norwegian Bioethics and Disability Scholar Patrick Kermit joins CeDR as a visiting Research Fellow

  16/02/2009
  Patrick Kermit, a doctoral research fellow in medical technology and ethics (details below) at the Department of Social Work and Health Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (N ... Read more»

• CeDR joins Cumbria and Lancashire Local Academic Network of the Health Research Design Service NW

  22/07/2008
  Members of the CeDR group are part of the Cumbria and Lancashire Local Academic Network of the Health Research Design Service North West (HRDS NoW). The RDS is part of a national network of advisory s ... Read more»

• Japanese translation of influential 'Social Work with Disabled People'

  10/03/2008
  Naoko Kawaguchi, who recently visited the Department of Applied Social Science and the Centre for Disability Research (CeDR) is producing a japanese translation of Social Work with Disabled People co- ... Read more»

• Is work fit for disabled people?

  (Keynote/plenary speaker) 10/7/2012
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»